American Media: A Model of Democratic Journalism

American Media: A Model of Democratic Journalism

1. Flourished American Commercial Magazines In Japan

Immediately after the end of war, American magazine companies worked on CIE to permit their publications in Japan. In December 1945, at first, Time and Newsweek were allowed issuing in Japan, chiefly for fulfilling the demand of the American soldiers, and secondly both magazines were perceived as appropriate media to reform Japanese culture. In the early period, Time issued for a 50 thousand of circulation, while 15 thousand for the Japanese. Newsweek probably published for the Americans two or three times than for 22 thousand copies for the Japanese. Readers Digest was first published in May 1946, in English and in Japanese.¹³¹

On the other hand, Times and Newsweek were published only English, and therefore the number of publication had been declined gradually. Consequently, Newsweek attempted to add Japanese explanation, or attached a Japanese booklet, but it was sold only six thousand in 1950. Even though the small numbers of Japanese readers, both magazines were meaningful for MacArthur and GHQ, for Times and Newsweek were popular among the American soldiers and not to say in the U.S. MacArthur therefore had to be sensitive for the American media, in order to keep good evaluation of the occupation in the U.S.

Many American journalists were dispatched into Japan (see Table 3). They watched GHQ and sometimes criticized the control of speech on the American newspaper and magazines issued in the U.S. They could be published freely all over the world but in Japan, where these magazines were required permission of GHQ in Japan. MacArthur was sensitive to the Americans’ reaction against his governance of Japan.

Table 3: The Number of Staffs of Foreign Media in Japan, 13 October 1945.¹³³

From the latter half of 1946, these complaints of foreign journalists had been increasing, and GHQ had been irritated them. The biggest shock for MacArthur was the criticism against censorship of GHQ on New York Times issued in the U.S. on 12 January 1947.

In addition, since Time and Newsweek were printed from the photo original version sent from direct from the U.S., if GHQ ordered to delete an article, the deleted space would be blank. Therefore, contradiction of CCD censorship became significant.

Some Japanese media noticed these contradictions, and they had begun asking to American media to write articles that Japanese journalists could not report.

2. American Official Newspaper: Neue Zeitung in Germany

Nevertheless, in Germany, what was the most influential American media was the Neue Zeitung, which was issued by the American army. The Allies rapidly set up newspapers and magazines in German language after the victory in 1945, but the army newspapers and magazines were discontinued within the short period, but the Neue Zeitung.¹³⁴ The chief editor was a Hungarian-born-émigré American, Hans Habe.

The OMGUS political advisor Robert Murphy persuaded the State Department that the zonal American newspaper, the Neue Zeitung, should be converted into a daily with various local editions. He explained his thought that the U.S. should set a model for all Germany and the Neue Zeitung was a much imperative to contain the official media in Germany for direct communication between the U.S. government and the German people in order to keep them informed about U.S. policy and news. In October 1945, Clay agreed with him, because he considered that this difficult task could not safely be left to the German licensed press alone.¹³⁵

OMGUS had two goals in mind when the Neue Zeitung was issued: to serve a model and pattern for the prospective licensed press and to serve an example of good cooperation between officers of the ICD and the German journalists who edited the paper jointly.¹³⁶ Nevertheless, the contents of the Neue Zeitung did not go in the direction that OMGUS had planned.¹³⁷

While German readers welcomed devastatingly its style, content, and message that which American officials did not want to accept.¹³⁸ From the inspection of the Neue Zeitung, within three months, circulation jumped from 500 thousand in October 1945 to 1.6 million copies in January 1946. A survey reported that almost half the adult population in the American zone, approximately ten million people, read the Neue Zeitung, and in addition the Neue Zeitung was also read in all four zones of Germany as well as in Austria, Switzerland, and across the Atlantic.¹³⁹ It achieved the highest circulation, slightly more than 2 million.¹⁴⁰

The Neue Zeitung was blamed not for its political section but for the cultural section, because the officials thought that suggestions about the superiority of German culture would make the acceptance of democratic values more problematic and identified the paper’s orientation as a “Nazi slogan.”¹⁴¹ Nevertheless, a few American high officials, such as Murphy, felt that the public response proved the success of the tactical methods of the editors of the Neue Zeitung.

It is difficult to estimate exactly what the influence of the Neue Zeitung on German freedom of press was, since “words are not material goods; their influence is beyond mathematical calculation.”¹⁴² The receiver also had their own thought and experience; one may say that the parallel existence of the Neue Zeitung and the licensed press exposed the disunity of the idea of the American officials over policy of information control, and ironically, it was observed that this confusion contributed to the growth of the German democracy.¹⁴³

A few American high officials felt that the public response proved the success of the tactical methods of the Neue Zeitung, according to that it did not choose to become a mouthpiece of the American government. As Gienow-Hecht insists, the editors were accomplishing the real mission of the U.S. occupation policy by conveying American values and ideas, such as freedom of press and democracy, to their German readers with “democratic” way.¹⁴⁴

3. The Differences among the thought of the American Military Officers

In Germany, however, the OMGUS staff was aware of the contradictions between the slogan of democratization and the reality of limitations on freedom of speech. This was reflected in the fact that a top American official, Lucius Clay, was reluctant to proceed with the control of information and had general concerns about the idea of democratization. Within OMGUS, there was some disagreement on this point. At the local sites of occupation in Germany, many German émigrés and German-American high-level officials were involved in both decision-making and policy execution. Acute debates sometimes took place between German émigrés and American military officers. This disunity produced a less stringent, more moderate set of practices for information control. In this regard, American political scientist Carl J. Friedrich concludes, “the basic cooperation between the Germans and the Americans came about because the United States proposed what the Germans wanted.”¹⁴⁵

These specialists, who were prominent in the German case, also faced certain difficulties and skepticism by the German public. For instance, in July 1946, a German Baron B. V. Recum sent a letter to his wife saying “the so-called German newspapers don’t represent the real Germany, because they are staffed by émigré's intent on returning the press to its partisan, Weimar past and, furthermore, fail to reflect the interests of the people.”¹⁴⁶ As this suggests, German émigrés were placed in a dilemma not only in Washington but also in Germany as well.

On the other hand, in Japan SCAP/GHQ seemed to be more consistent and positive as to controlling the freedom of the press owing to MacArthur’s definitive instructions on the matter and also to the authority he possessed over his staff. This was the case in spite of the hesitation of policy makers in Washington to implement control of the press in Japan. For MacArthur, however, control over the mass media in Japan was one way to reinforce the legitimacy of the U.S., GHQ, and himself. Another important element was the absence of American Japan specialists at GHQ.

4. Enforcement: the Continuity/Discontinuity of Journalists

1. Who could become Postwar Journalists?

   1. Continuity of Individual Journalists in the early stage

Japanese filmmakers also continued making films, although they avoided producing things that were obvious militaristic propaganda for any specific cause. In fact, GHQ did ban wartime films quicker than filmmakers had anticipated.¹⁴⁸ Critics like Hirano argue that Japanese filmmakers were not spontaneously to cease production of wartime movies on their own accord. She argues:

Etō and some conservative critics also charge that immediately after the war progressive mass media, a newspaper Asahi Shimbun and a magazine Sekai, turned their attitudes from anti-occupation to pro-American without any thinking or reflection.¹⁵⁰ Certainly, Asahi's articles changed suddenly 180 degrees without any explanation after 15 September 1945, when the short-term suspension of Asahi was first implemented.

However, Etō forgets that this same situation could be seen not only in the ‘progressive’ Asahi or Sekai, but also in much of the mainstream commercial media. Etō likewise ignores the fact that in many newspaper companies a democratic reform movement from the bottom had erupted and sometimes produced extremely “democratic” newspapers, such as the Yomiuri Shimbun, which became very conservative later on.¹⁵¹

With the onset of the “reverse course” in occupation policy in Japan, however, purges against labor unions and the mass media swelled. In late 1947 and because of the Cold War and desires to make Japan a bulwark against East Asian communism, SCAP began purging and sanctioning certain influential media officials. Nevertheless, 857 of 1066 major journalists had already resigned from their posts as a result of the end of the war, making GHQ’s attitude toward the media somewhat arbitrary and illogical.

Along with purges of the media and unions, GHQ began to informally, but sternly, demand that editorial managers fire writers or editors whose views went against American policy toward the Cold War. Sanctions against such persons sometimes even included the threat of military tribunals and “hard labor” in Okinawa.¹⁵²

From the end of 1949, the Yoshida government carried out a more thorough ‘red purge’ with the active cooperation of GHQ. This did not seriously affect the media at first because it was conducted against radical employees in the public sector. However, with the eruption of the Korean War on 25 Jun 1950, the red purge expanded over into the private sector, including publishing and film making, as well as public radio NHK. More than 700 individuals were expelled from the media industry. The red purge attacked the mainstream Japanese mass media, even NHK, Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and cinema companies. Many progressive or leftist publishers that had flourished postwar Japan were now discontinued; others turned toward views that are more conservative in order to survive.¹⁵³

More than a few supporters of American democracy became disillusioned and moved from early enthusiastic support of the U.S. to cynicism or outright anti-Americanism.¹⁵⁴ This is where Norihiro Katō finds the roots of the continuing problem of Anti-American Leftists vs. Pro-American Conservatives.

2. Continuity in the Relationship between ex-establishment and the press: the Press Clubs

In 1890, the press club was born along with the Imperial Diet. Subsequently, the number of the press clubs increased and each focused on a specific ministry. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Prime Minister Katsura was well aware of the usefulness of the press clubs and began exploiting them, such that the nature of these clubs quickly changed into more exclusive cliques of journalists tied more closely to centers of power. Only a small number of major newspapers could become members of these clubs. The remainders, local newspapers in particular, were excluded (see Appendix 5). In addition, from the late 1920s, government control became tighter and these clubs eventually became a quasi-official organ of the government propaganda machine.¹⁵⁵

In April 1946, CIE / GHQ reported on conditions surrounding the press clubs and pointed out the problems that these groups had a negative effect on freedom of the press in Japan. In the prewar era, the government utilized these clubs to manipulate information and public opinion, with journalists avoiding conflict by sticking to the rules of these clubs. Now CIE declared this system to have stifled competition among the major companies and to have put the local media at a distinct disadvantage.¹⁵⁶ This analysis pointed out the problem of the press clubs very precisely.

In the beginning of May 1946, an incident happened that the Cabinet press club prohibited a member journalist of Yomiuri Shimbun to enter or attend the press conference of the Cabinet for little apparent reason. The chief of PPB of CIE, Daniel C. Imboden, declared on 29 May that “Taking speech and conduct which deny a newspaper approach to a governmental news source does not harmonize with the concept of the democracy: freedom of all newspapers.” He ordered a return of the journalist to the Cabinet press club, and in addition a quick reformation of the system of the press clubs.¹⁵⁷ This incident illustrated the exclusionary potential of the press clubs, which was seen as a threat to democracy by SCAP.

As a result, major newspapers and news companies sought to reform and appealed to GHQ that they had now become kind of organizations like their counterparts in the US. For instance, the yearbook of Mainichi Shimbun of 1947 and 1948 alleged that the reformation of each press clubs were executed spontaneously and democratically, and all of them were reorganized and open to all journalists. However, the book Common Sense of Newspaper Understanding, published in 1950, revealed the actual situation of the press clubs. Though they ostensibly became open, when new newspapers or party papers applied to join the clubs they virtually rejected the offer with a lot of excuses.¹⁵⁸

Although Imboden repeated the same order to reform the press clubs, the reformation was practically emasculated. Yamamoto notes, “This neglect of the order of reformation came from the findings of the Japanese mass media that GHQ instruction was just specious and GHQ did not have a will to realize it seriously. Japanese media in May 1946 really thought to change the system, but then soon discovered that GHQ and Imboden were themselves actively utilizing the press clubs and that they could do the same. GHQ, for example, founded its own press club on 30 April 1946, and its members were limited twenty mass media favored by Imboden.¹⁵⁹ From the start of the postwar era, then, these press clubs have been the handmaidens of those in power.

3. Current Press Clubs

The Foreign Journalist Association also has its own workspace, and offers it to its members. The fee of the rent and facilities is paid from membership fee. However, huge amount of management fees of Japanese press clubs are paid by the host institutions, for use of things like telephone, fax, copy machines, electricity, water, gas, and even the newspapers that are delivered to their work space. That is, the governmental budget covers all of them, whether it is explicit or implicit. It is also not uncommon to have graft and corruption through excess entertaining at dinner or travel by the central and local government officials.¹⁶²

As a result of heavily relying on the press clubs, according to a freelance journalist Tatsuya Iwase’s analysis of the three major national papers, Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri, between 65 and 70 percent of articles in these dailies come directly from the press clubs. Around one quarter of each paper has the same news as its competitors, with approximately 40 percent of the news stories appearing in at least two of these papers (see Appendix 6). In addition, there is no serious criticism against the policies, but the publicity from the governments.¹⁶³

2. The Licensed Press in Germany: Expulsion ex-Nazi Journalists

The instructions that the Allies ordered as conditions for granting licenses included: prohibiting dissemination of any type of news, information or editorial which constitutes a malicious attack upon policies or personnel of the military government, not disrupting unity among the Allies, and not evoking the distrust and hostility of the German people against any occupying power.¹⁶⁵ Breaching any of these conditions would lead to forfeiture of the license. This invitation implied “a belief that there were Germans who could, up to a point, be trusted.”¹⁶⁶ On the other hand, OMGUS contented itself with an examination of the newspapers’ contents “post“ publication.¹⁶⁷

ICD set off to a slow start in renewing prewar licenses of German newspaper companies, book publishers, editors, journalists, and filmmakers because it had to first decide who should and should not be licensed. ICD decided through its own investigation about the loyalty and the personal thought of the candidate for the German licensee. All prospective licensees, including even technicians, had to answer long questionnaires, which asked their political pasts, especially membership and activity in the Nazi Party.¹⁶⁸

On 31 July 1945, the first license in the U.S. zone was issued to Frankfurter Rundschau. The number of licensed newspapers was much smaller than that of newspapers in wartime Germany, but without exception, all of them had a circulation of much more than 100,000.¹⁶⁹ The license system ended in 1949, when the West Germany was established, but at the end of 1948, only 62 newspaper companies were licensed in the American zone.

Since most expert editors and other journalists who had worked in the press during the time of the Third Reich could not be employed, the licensees had to depend on young editors, correspondents and reporters who had had no newspaper experience. That is, about one-fourth of the 113 editors and publishers who were finally licensed to operate papers in the U.S. zone had not previously been newspapermen at all, and the remaining three-quarters had been engaged principally as newspapermen prior to 1933. The new newspapers had additional difficulties. There was no press association and no correspondents. Initially, it was impossible to get news from foreign agencies, so it was provided through army channels.¹⁷⁰

ICD film officers were also reluctant to renew German film producers, since the Americans were skeptical as to the potential value of German contributions to the democratization effort. Prewar fascism had relied upon the cinema as propaganda and the Cold War meant that this continued in the form of Soviet propaganda aimed extending its political and cultural influence into the Western zone of Germany. ICD therefore proceeded in an “extremely grudging manner” in preparing to present German producers’ films.

On 24 November 1945, the following fundamental rules were set:

Licensed producers should not only be politically white or at least bright gray, but should be as professionally competent as possible. Most important of all they should be men who instinctively think or respond to ideas along the lines of Allied policy in Germany, i.e., freedom and dignity [sic] of the individual, civic courage, the general democratic principle of the right and responsibility of the individual to think and act for himself in terms of the common good, anti-militaristic, anti-Prussianism [sic], the responsibility of a citizen for the policies and actions of his Government, freer family and parent-child relationship, etc.¹⁷¹

The American occupation was well aware of these past and present abuses of film and not completely trusting of German filmmakers.

If OMGUS press officers had regarded any as reactionary conservatives, they were denied a newspaper license, even when the denazification law did not apply to them. On 7 May 1945, however, approximately eight million Germans were members of the Nazi Party, with many more supporters. The exclusion of ex-Nazis proved to be highly difficult. Because of realistic demands, that the Germans strongly appealed the shortage of their cultural entertainments, “Notorious Nazi filmmakers resumed their activity in 1950s, while the proscription against Communist filmmakers would continue throughout the Adenauer government period.¹⁷² In spite of these exceptions, it was a fact, almost all licensees were strictly selected by the American officials, during the occupation period.

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